Genie In a Gin Bottle
Her lips caress another cigarette
A fading belle looking for love
The smoke veils a creature of habit
Chasing a young girls dream
But this Genie found the palace doors locked
Her youth distilled into a bottle of gin
Diluted by these streets of sin
Now her makeup hides the bottles content
Silk fingernails deluding the smokers hand
Her wig of blonde hiding the soul beneath
The ladder in her stockings,
Torn like her Hollywood dreams
Her perfume sickly sweet,
Masking the odor from yesterday’s gin
The ashtray is full,
Cheap lipstick covers the tab ends
Her vigil to find happiness
But he never comes.
Only a stream of chancer’s
Wanting to spin lady luck one more time
Fuelled by the promise of paradise
A vacation from life
And a brag for Jack Daniels
Under neon lights
A Beautiful girl content in her gin bottle
Her saviour from this cruel world
An inner voice plays in her mind
“I could have been a movie star”
A role she can play all too well
But morning light never lies
Her beauty, has fled, left on the pillow
Like some Monet’s impression.
Regret lays sprawled out
Like yesterday’s salad,
Thrown out with the rubbish
For the slugs of corruption to eat
.
Her aging face revealing every rejection
Every turned down script, every broken dream
A lifetime of heart break.
But she still plays her part well
Play it again Sam
And another cigarette,
The same mistake, the same men,
From all the gin bars in the world
She had to choose this one
Another lottery ticket to litter her despair.
No winning numbers here
Her silent acceptance speech,
Laid bare in her blood shot eyes of regret
A mouthwash of gin
And the genie of love returns to her bottle
Her legs bruised and varicose,
Testament to waitress by day and genie by night.
He closes the door
His only thought to get away, not his finest hour
Jack Daniels his moral escape goat
Nosey neighbour’s his jury
They bare witness to his walk of shame
She opens the curtains,
And sees him fade into the faceless crowd
Alone again, a full ashtray and an empty gin bottle
Symbols of last night’s play
The mirror torments her image,
As she drinks coffee through smoke stained teeth
A wave of her head, a smile
And a daydream
Tonight, her prince will save her
This is her delusion, her reason to live
But time is running out
For she is part of life’s crap game.
The dice rolls once more
Will it be happiness? or loneliness?
But in the end, deep down she knows
The house always wins in tinsel town.
Copyright © Steven Cooke | Year Posted 2011
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